


The Circle

by Missy



Category: Dirty Dancing (1987)
Genre: Childhood, Friendship, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5115500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as long as Johnny can remember, he and Penny have always been friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Circle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionessvalenti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/gifts).



When Penny is sixteen, Johnny thinks she’s going to be a movie star. Every time he brings it up, she howls. 

“With these pigeon toes?” She sticks them up in the air. “Y’think guys would pay to see me wiggle these babies around onscreen?”

He blushes. “Hey, why not? Everyone’s going crazy for Lana Turner and she’s got a hammer toe!”

“Where’d you hear that?” she asks.

“I heard it in a magazine . Don’t you read?”

 

“I’m too busy dancing,” she sasses, reaching for the record player. It’s a hot day on Coney Island, summer’s nowhere near breaking and all she wants is to teach him the latest moves – at the worst time, of course – at the peak of the hottest heat. 

“Come on,” she says, hopping off the bed. “This is how you waltz.”

*** 

When Penny is twenty-one, they’re dancing together at Kellermans every night, she gets pissed off at something Bobby said and storms out of a meringue lesson mid-strut. She’s crying and angry when Johnny finds her, jamming her clothing into a tiny suitcase.

“Hey,” he says quietly, grabbing her flailing wrists. “It ain’t true. Guys like Bobby’re born with silver spoons in their mouths – don’t think twice about hurting people so he just says the first thing he can think of. Fuck him, we’ll dance across the river at Eggleman’s next year.”

Laughter bubbles from her throat, angry, a ghostlike parody of what a real laugh ought to be. “He’s right, y’know. I ain’t no vestal virgin. Haven’t been that in a long time.”

He looks her right in the eye. “Who cares what they think?”

And she allows herself the comfort of angry tears in his kind embrace.

*** 

When Penny is forty, Johnny comes to her first Broadway show and watches her play Mama Rose with all of the gusto and glory he’s always known she had hiding inside of her. They go out to Sardis afterward and he watches her sign playbills for newfound fans, proud to let her have the spotlight.

“Are you her fella?” A kindly-looking old lady asks him as he stands by in the shadows.

“I’m her best friend,” he says, meaning it. 

Knowing she’s his best friend, too.


End file.
